Unedited Punkassblog thread

March 23, 2007

This page was thrown together by the “Flash Gordon” gang of punkassblogs. We have noticed that in your latest thread you have gone to censoring us. That is your purview. This is ours. We have decided to repost this thread so we can leave comments unmolested.

Here is the latest thread as reconstituted. The punkass thread up to the 38th post was copied and pasted as part of the the main post. Additional comments will be added as needed.

Sabotabby at The AntiSocial Socialist has one of the more active livejournal sites I’ve seen. Unfortunately, her traffic includes more than just the friendly feminist types. She also suffers the company of a classic soft troll, one of those “I’m on your side but everything you do and say is wrong” types who cloaks his wingnuttery under a veil of helpful advice.

For the few times I’ve been able to stomach reading Ann Coulter (know your enemy), I’ve never seen her attack someone who wouldn’t already be opposed to her. On the other hand, compare and contrast with the word “Patriarchy” – which even gets zingarella’s boyfriend (who I assume is pretty progressive) feeling defensive because it directly dichotomises the genders (feminists good, patriarchy bad) when there is absolutely no need for there to be this dichotomy. Instead, if you called yourself egalitarians against oppression (which I believe is akin to what you are trying to express), you could say the exact same thing without making potential allies defensive and potential neutrals threatened.

The emphasis is mine, and not just because I felt like breaking up his long-winded rant.

First off, I missed the memo on our genders being switched from “male” and “female” to “patriarch” and “feminist.” Does this mean we need new bathroom signs? If so, I vote for a burning bra on the feminist sign and a big, fat, fucking crybaby on the patriarchy sign, because that’s clearly the vibe those guys are giving off these days.

Being a part of the Patriarchy is like being the good member of the Bush family. In your own mind, you don’t have to self-identify with the ugly part of your heritage, but publicly, you need to accept 3 things:
1) This thing you’re born into, even if it wasn’t your choice, has on the whole been responsible for awful, awful crimes against humanity.
2) When people say “The Bush Family sucks” you need to admit the truth of that statement even if you’ve been performing Jesus-like works of samaritanship. Your exceptions don’t cancel out the larger evils carried out over a much longer period of time by multiple generations.
3) You are part of the Bush family and have benefitted massively from their oppressive acts. People have given you breaks and cut you slack even when you didn’t ask for it.

This may seem like a contradiction on the surface — how can you both reject and accept your Bush-ness? But it all has to do with the mode of acknowledgement.

You don’t need to internalize being a Bush — you ought to rebel against it inside yourself and try to be as un-Bush you can be. But you must also accept that people who don’t like what your family’s done will impugn your family, and by extension you, even though you haven’t been as evil as others.

You’ve benefitted from your status as part of that family, meaning you’re privileged and part of the oppressor class whether you like it or not. This exempts you from pats on the back for combatting said oppression (because at best you’re working your way back to even). It also exempts you from the right to bitch and moan when people do their impugning via language you don’t like.

Again, being a well-meaning male and being The Good Bush are quite similar. We didn’t choose to be born into Patriarchy, but we have been. And even though some of us are trying to act in opposition to the Patriarchy, we’re still part of it. So when people rip on the Patriarchy, those insults also target us by default, but since well-meaning males shouldn’t be internally self-identifying with the Patriarchy, the insults should roll right off our backs. Heck, we should be hurling just as many, if not more, of them.

And we definitely shouldn’t scrunch up our buttcheeks over the word “Patriarchy.” The oppression of the Patriarchy is an entirely factual element of the status quo, and we needn’t avoid talking about it by name — any name — because some men will be offended. No revolution gets very far by kissing the ass of the oppressors.

You’ve benefitted from your status as part of that family, meaning you’re privileged and part of the oppressor class whether you like it or not. This exempts you from pats on the back for combatting said oppression (because at best you’re working your way back to even). It also exempts you from the right to bitch and moan when people do their impugning via language you don’t like.

So let me get this straight. I am a man. I also somehow get advantage from being a man – this is btw, convienently invisible/unevidenced/(imaginary?) benefit.

Therefore I don’t deserve to get any credit for trying to breakdown the pretend social fabric? And I don’t get to complain if I am personally insulted by those brave feminist “revolutionaries”?

Well, shit, I don’t see where that whole explanation said “Prince Barin is a douchebag”.

The point is, your personal nice happy awesomeness doesn’t negate the actions of the group you belong to.

I could go on, but I’d just be repeating the analogy up there that you didn’t pay attention to, so why bother?

Instead, I’ll note that you’re advocating a very radical re-imagining of the english language; essentially, by your argument, we aren’t allowed to assign qualities to groups… as long as one Nazi saw the light and deserted to fight against germany, we can never again say “Nazis are evil”.

So, something I’ve been interested in for about… the last 30 seconds, is why these complaints are always shrouded in 3rd person language. It’s never “As a man, I often feel alienated by the way you talk about the patriarchy.”, but “Your talk is offensive to men and that’s why men don’t like you.”

To be fair, I didn’t really see it either before reading Susan Okin. Or rather, I was aware of it, but didn’t really understand how damaging it is to individuals and to society. It was always just, “sure it’s unfair, but it’s just how things are, you know? It’s the natural state.”

To see something, one must look.

His Highness refuses even to see the point of the analogy Christopher made:

So Oscar Shindler shouldn’t get any credit for saving the lives of a thousand people beccause he was a member of the Nazi Party?

Wow. That’s dumb,

So, since Schindler saw the light and helped people (AFTER getting filthy rich off of their slave labor, naturally) does His Highness think Nazism is ok? That was C’s point, after all.

The reason these guys have a problem with the word “Patriarchy” is that they fail to see that they are as much its victims as its beneficiaries. They just don’t seem to get the concept that a heirarchichal society based on gender is inherently unjust to everybody.

I have nothing really to add to the discussion (at least nothing that wasn’t brought up in the record-setting 143-comment flamewar on my LJ), but I am blushing at this—especially since I’m a big fan of this blog. However, I should mention that the post that sparked said hilarity was not mine—the concern trolling was spillover from zingerella’s attempt to explain the patriarchy to some dudes on her LJ who just weren’t getting it. (And still don’t get it.)

thanks, sabotabby! i intend to make a concerted effort to interact more with the folks who are kind enough to link us, and i enjoy reading your site. and while zingerella’s site may have spawned the trolls, you were lucky enough to catch a case of them yourself. don’t sell yourself too short…

You really don’t see any inherent benefits accorded to you by this society simply by being a dude? Are you sure about that?

Yes. There is no Patriarchy.

The point is, your personal nice happy awesomeness doesn’t negate the actions of the group you belong to.

I never said it did.

Conversely, an individual simply born into a group is not responsible for that group’s alleged status or crimes i.e. Jenna Bush is not responsible for the War in Iraq or her family’s wealth.

Futhermore, if Jenna Bush feels upset about her father’s actions and takes measures to correct injustices (i.e. giving her trust fund to Iraqi victims) she is not just “working towards zero” and she should be given many “pats” on the back and excused from criticisms of her father’s misdeeds.

To think otherwise is dumb and you have only yourselves to blame for not attracting more men to your “revolution”.

yeah….. umm i only have one thing to say……. you crazy, p little girls ( being as none of you are women) need to get off your high ass horses and realize that you are what is “keeping women down” you and your ridiculousness will bash all men….. even when they are not part of the asses that are one in 15 billion that still treat woman like shit…… in fact you are causing your own downfall by not noticing that these men…… each and every guy on this post would easily be nice to you if you stopped being a little girl and take care of your man….. bring him a drink and open it….. rub his feet…. and kiss him everyday….. i have the best man in the world because i am not a Nazi and dont follow your crazy guidelines of we cant do anything for men…… sounds to me like you are all afraid of the package. get some and try again!!!

“If I didn’t know you were congenitally stupid, I’d point out that you seem to have missed the point entirely.” – Junk Science

I think you have missed the point Junk.

I will use another analogy.

Americans consume more resources per capita than any other people on this planet. We are by far the leading contributors of global warming pollutants. We invade other countries. We created American Idol.

Americans are assholes – (for arguments sake).

If you are American are you responsible for the war in Iraq, global warming, American Idol, etc? Are you personally morally culpable of these dastardly things?

According to Kyso you are.

If you forswore your Americaness, gave up your wealth and moved to some suitably impoverished nation and dedicated your life to charity in an orphanage for blind children would you be worthy of admiration?

According to Kyso you wouldn’t. She would just claim you were “working towards zero” – or some other such nonsense.

Would you feel exempt from criticisms directed to you of Americans by foreigners?

What? All I said was that Oskar Schindler was, in the end, a pretty good guy.

But yeah, as an American I do feel some responsibility for the bad things that we’re doing to the rest of the world. It’s the flip side of feeling proud about the good things. And when karma comes to bite us in the ass, I’ll pay along with the other 300 million of you.

But this is thread drift, so we’ll just end that I’m so pleased you think I write this blog all by myself, but I don’t. This is Marc’s post.

Do you ever contribute anything? (Answer to rhetorical question – not really)

At least you could try to be funny or something.

Kyso,

It’s honorable that you want to rectify actions made by members of our group, but at the same time it’s not right for you to be guilty because our lovely president decides to bomb some country just because he can’t pronounce it’s name. I think a big problem with modern feminism is that it generalizes all men as oppressors and all women as victims. This mentality serves no one, especially women. I think you should fight for the rights of women without dividing society and labeling an entire class of people as oppressors. You’re never going to advance the rights of women if all you do is paint them as victims. You need see things at the individual level, and quit generalizing.

Actually, junk science hit the nail on the head. As men, we have almost no fear of getting raped.

Meanwhile, as I posted yesterday, a 2006 UN study shows violence against women is the most common but least punished crime in the world. And the statistics here are overwhelming.

The Patriarchy means men can live almost entirely withour fear of rape. The Patriarchy means you are allowed to be bombastic and confident as a man and people won’t call you means like “bitch” just because you have the nerve to be proud of yourself. The Patriarchy means you are part of the good old boys network without even having to apply. I am a man, and I plainly see all the breaks I get — you can, too, whether you admit it or not.

Barin, if you can’t grasp the Bush family analogy, then I’m sorry — for you. Saying “the Bush family sucks” is a perfectly valid opinion. That family’s damn near wrecked this country. It doesn’t mean that every single member has played a role, but rather, on the whole, the family has been a terrible influence on America. So if I say “the Bush family sucks,” Jenna shouldn’t act as petulant and whiny as you do when I talk ruefully of the Patriarchy. Instead she should say, “yeah, the family has messed up, and I want to change that image by, first, acknowledging that on the whole the people I am associated with have been bad, and second, by doing things differently myself.”

That’s what guys need to do, too. We need to own up to the fact that sexism is prevalent, and it’s perpetuated constantly, and we should openly acknowledge that we want to change that system.

Vultan, if you don’t know the difference between calling out institutionalized privilege in favor of men and stereotyping against the underprivileged, then I’m sorry for you, too.

Barin, Vultan, you guys know that sexism remains ingrained in our culture. Your lame protests to this obvious truth are boring, repetitive, and disingenuous. You and your whines aren’t welcome at Punkassblog. And if you continue to comment, I warn you that you won’t like what happens to your words.

This blog is reserved for genuine, constructive conversation, and you miscontrue and mischaracterize everything here to try and have your way. Your time here is over.

If you read Prince Barin, Vultan the Mighty, or princess Aurora (assuming that she’s not just pulling our virtual legs with her arrows aimed at Ms. Strawfeminist) (Also, what is it with the handles? Prince this, Princess that, and Whatsisface the Mighty? Overcompensate much?)

What’s funny is the patriarchy-identifying dudes here don’t even get to claim special status for meaning well, since they don’t and are assholes. Full-on identification with the evil powers that be. They were rooting for Sauron that whole time.

I find their hypocrisy the most amusing thing about their trollful petulance. By ignoring whole swaths of our posts and comments, taking random sentences out of context, and positing objectively untrue statements as fact, they try to claim we’re somehow fabricating reality.

I figure if you’re interested in preserving the male stranglehold on our society, at least be upfront about it. To lie about its (non)existence is just so cowardly.

“You’ve benefited from your status as part of that family, meaning you’re privileged and part of the oppressor class whether you like it or not. This exempts you from pats on the back for combating said oppression (because at best you’re working your way back to even). It also exempts you from the right to bitch and moan when people do their impugning via language you don’t like..”

Once again you clearly state that being born into an oppressive group: i.e the Bush family, the United States, etc., “exempts you from pats on the back for combating said oppression”.

This is stupid. People who surrender their power are not just deserving of “pats on the back” they are worthy of admiration.

After all, it’s a much more impressive act to go against self interest on the basis of moral principle than to act when the two of them combine as in the case of oppressed peoples combating unjust rulers. For example, a prince that gives up his wealth and his power and spends his life serving the poor is more worthy than an oppressed revolutionary fighting against the same rulers. What does that peasant have to lose after all? What doesn’t the prince have to lose? Who is sacrificing more for his beliefs?

This was my argument.

It was not that one member of an oppressed group who acts noble somehow exempts his group. I never said that. I never said anything like that. That’s unimaginably dumb. This is why you are the only ones misconstruing arguments around here.

“I find their hypocrisy the most amusing thing about their trollful petulance.”

How are we petulant? Because we disagree with you? I think you misread us – we get a kick out of this.

In my years as a blogging feminist, I have learned thereâ€™s no level of cowardice too cowardly for the Real Men out there to reach. -Amanda Marcotte

Amanda please tell me how we have been cowards? It seems to me that the ultimate act of cowardice here is Marc Faletti editing our posts.

Whatâ€™s funny is the patriarchy-identifying dudes here donâ€™t even get to claim special status for meaning well, since they donâ€™t and are assholes. -Amanda Marcotte

So we’re assholes for disagreeing with you? I don’t see how, we haven’t called any of you names (Hell even Kinder has been nice) or said anything rude. All we have done is attempted to refute you and your friends claims and that makes us assholes?

You see this is the problem with you and your friends here. Instead of attempting to refute difficult arguments you just call people assholes, etc or delete their posts. Let’s face it you are the rude ones not us and that is exactly why you were unofficialy fired by John Edwards.

Frankly Amanda, your posts come out of no where and have nothing to do with the rest of the posts….You and Junk Science and Jack must be good friends.

“After all, it’s a much more impressive act to go against self interest on the basis of moral principle than to act when the two of them combine as in the case of oppressed peoples combating unjust rulers.”

This argument reminded me in all 5 comments it appeared on this page of one I heard many years ago in regards to “deadbeat dads.” I don’t care to open a debate on that topic, but the gist of the statement that I think has some relevance to this discussion was that fathers who actually pay child support and take fair responsibility for their biological offspring did not deserve special recognition or “props” since that’s what every father should be doing anyway.

In the case of humans of privilege choosing to side with the oppressed humans, the privileged were oppressing (blissfully ignorant) until they consciously stopped* and, appropriately horrified as humans of good conscience would be, fought the very system of tyrannical hierarchy that benefited them in the first place. The system is malevolently flawed, and recognizing that is the first step to smashing it, I think.

But then I’m an ignorant middle-class honky queer female who has benefited from excellent access to information and education**. I could easily be (and am probably) wrong.

I dunno, I’d have to give the edge to that guy in Titanic who jumped on one of the earliest-filled “women and children only” lifeboats, or maybe any one of those people in the 50’s that sold out thier friends and coworkers so McCarthy would leave them alone.

Maybe whoever turned Anne Frank in to the Nazis? That guy in “The Last Sword Drawn” who faked his participation in battle?

I’d have to say editing boring comments from men he wishes to drive away from his blog hardly counts as an “ultimate” cowardly act. Don’t be such a drama queen.

(punkass) Marc FalettiMar 21st, 2007 at 6:46 amI would actually say a demonstrable act of cowardice is ubertroll Adam North posting as “Prince Barin.” Seeing as how the email addy for the “Prince” is adamjnorth -at- gmail, I’d say he has some work to do if he wants to cover his identity.

Also, to the notion that editing comments is all mean and or cowardly, do remember that this is an explicit effort to drive away those of you who aren’t participating in genuine, constructive conversation. Disagreement can be offered sincerely, and it’ll be engaged, but plainly stating falsehoods and mischaracterizing or ignoring whole swaths of our positions is disingenuous and not allowed.

“There is no Patriarchy” is just a notch or two below “there was no Holocaust.” The obvious denial of reality is just as infuriating, as is its blatant disregard for the countless lives damaged or lost as a result of it.

“I would actually say a demonstrable act of cowardice is ubertroll Adam North posting as “Prince Barin.” Seeing as how the email addy for the “Prince” is adamjnorth -at- gmail, I’d say he has some work to do if he wants to cover his identity.”

Since when is an online handle a secret identity? If I wanted to cover my identity why would I use an email address with my name in it? Oh, and although I don’t honestly care thanks for publishing my email address on your blog. Classy.

Look, I know I offended you: simply stating that the Patriarchy doesn’t exist to feminists is akin to telling a hard-core Marxist that Communism doesn’t work or a fundamental Christian that the bible is mythology. It’s not going to earn one friends. But that wasn’t the argument I making. And we both know that the Patriarchy is far from an “objective fact”. You defeat your claims of being open-minded when you say that.

Important news:
* In the United States, 1.3 women are raped every minute. That results in 78 rapes each hour, 1872 rapes each day, 56160 rapes ech month and 683,280 rapes each year.
* 1 out of every 3 American women will be sexually assulted in her lifetime.
* The United States has the world’s highest rape rate of the countries that publish such statistics. It’s 4 times higher than Germany, 13 times higher than England, and 20 times higher than Japan.
* 1 in 7 women will be raped by her husband.
* 83% of rape cases are ages 24 or under.
* 1 in 4 college women have either been raped or suffered attempted rape.
* 1 in 12 males students surveyed had commited acts that met the legal definition of rape. Furthermore, 84% of the men who had commited such acts said what they had done was definitely not rape.
* 75% of male students and 55% of female students involved in acquintance rape had been drinking or using drugs.
* Only 16% of rapes are ever reported to the police.

1) Apologies for publishing your email address. I have altered my comment and your quote of it to protect it.

2) When you post as an antagonist at a site under one name and then start doing it again at the same site under a new name, thatâ€™s disingenuous. Just like everything else you post.

The Patriarchy â€” meaning a culturally-reinforced institutionalization of privilege for men â€” is as factual as the Holocaust. Your denials spit in the face of every female victim of sexism, rape, spousal abuse, and more. Please leave.

#51 Longhairedweirdo Mar 21st, 2007 at 6:10 pm

Prince Barin:

So let me get this straight. I am a man. I also somehow get advantage from being a man – this is btw, convienently invisible/unevidenced/(imaginary?) benefit.

Therefore I donâ€™t deserve to get any credit for trying to breakdown the pretend social fabric? And I donâ€™t get to complain if I am personally insulted by those brave feminist â€œrevolutionariesâ€?

Yes, thatâ€™s right. When thereâ€™s an obvious injustice, you donâ€™t get called a wonderful person for opposing that obvious injustice.

Striving for justice is every personâ€™s duty. If you think you deserve a cookie for fighting for justice, then you have no flipping idea what â€œjusticeâ€ means.

You might deserve praise for the quantity or quality of work you do to bring about justice; you donâ€™t deserve praise just for saying â€œYeah, well, I can get behind that, if itâ€™s not too much trouble.â€

As for insults, what are you talking about?

Are you talking about â€œPrince Barin, you are an awful personâ€? Or are you talking about â€œmen routinely exploit women sexuallyâ€? The latter is not an insult; it is a valid generalization that does not hold in all cases but still holds as a generalization.

“You might deserve praise for the quantity or quality of work you do to bring about justice; you don’t deserve praise just for saying â€œYeah, well, I can get behind that, if it’s not too much trouble.”- Longhairedweirdo

I don’t agree. If being a man does give one all sorts of privilege then men who are willing to undo said privilege should be given all sorts of cookies for undoing it.

As I explained before â€“ to be fair you probably were unable to read the post because our open-minded hosts keep deleting them for some reason – sacrificing privilege that you were simply born into on the basis of moral principle is much more commendable than an oppressed person fighting for freedom. This is because the privileged person is going against his/her self interest for the sake of morality – and as a result is sacrificing more. The oppressed person, on the other hand, stands only to gain as a part of his/her struggle for rights.

After all, the oppressed loose only their chains.

Oh and the insults thing:

“[Patriarchal privilege] also exempts you from the right to bitch and moan when people do their impugning via language you don’t like.”

“insults should roll right off our backs. Heck, we should be hurling just as many, if not more, of them.”

I took this to mean that feminists have the right to insult men whenever they want. Naturally I disagree.

“men routinely exploit women sexually? The latter is not an insult; it is a valid generalization that does not hold in all cases but still holds as a generalization.”

Actually that isn’t a valid generalization. A vast majority of men don’t exploit women sexually. Therefore to say so is false.

That’s like saying “African Americans routinely commit crimes“ – sure some do but that is still a very racist sentiment.

“When you post as an antagonist at a site under one name and then start doing it again at the same site under a new name, that’s disingenuous.”

That wasn’t my attention. I simply like Flash Gordon. Honestly since you matched up the IP’s quickly last time I thought there wouldn’t be any confusion – especially since I used the same email address. I did think about posting as Prince Baron f/k/a Adam North – but it just seemed overly cheesy.

“The Patriarchy” meaning a culturally-reinforced institutionalization of privilege for men ” is as factual as the Holocaust.”

The Holocaust is proven by thousands of documents, witnesses and video footage of the actual camps it took place in. It was also a historical event.

When I say the Patriarchy doesn’t exist I don’t mean the following:

1. That there never was a Patriarchy.

2. That other countries or societies are not Patriarchal.

What I mean is that I have never seen any evidence to suggest that American society is still structured to benefit men over women. In fact, there is a considerable amount of evidence to suggest otherwise.

Also do you really not see the logical problems with this line of reasoning?:

1. Some men rape women.
2. Therefore the Patriarchy exists.

Also I only keep posting because I have this odd compulsion to defend myself. Maybe if you stopped making unwarranted claims and attacks”.

I have to laugh… poor babies can’t stand a little criticism. This simply means that your ideas can’t stand up to a fair debate. If you can’t convince people who aren’t in your choir of what you take as plain fact, then you should rethink your logic. I think this post editing is your way of saying NA-NA-NA-NA I CAN’T HEAR YOU.

I agree. First, we have the debate where they kept trying to argue, but kept posting evidence (when they bothered with it at all) that refuted their own positions.

Then they started the desperate “we don’t care posts” (ironic since if they didn’t care they wouldn’t spend so much time telling us they didn’t care.)

Then the “you’re boring” posts (derivative of the above)

Then the “you’re misconstruing our arguments” phase (note: they never actually explain how this is the case and few of our arguments are spared from bizarre and gross misconstruing – i.e we say false rape convictions happen and are bad and they say we are “defending rape”, we say a member of a group who resists that group’s injustice is morally commendable – they say that we’re arguing that a Nazi who is good absolves the Nazi party of it evil (I still haven’t figured out how they warped that one)

Then the “you are horrible people for not believing what we were taught in out Gender Studies class” phase. Once again this is made ironic by the fact that half of them never argue – instead opting to post random insults. I think Mildred once told me that my penis was the size of a pubic hair (wtf?).

Also, I notice that they have this weird fascination with rape statistics. It doesn’t matter what you are debating i.e. existence of patriarchy, whether or not resisting privilege is commendable – they just love random tables of rape statistics. Maybe they are going for emotional appeals?

Lastly, sensing no hope of salvaging the thread and seeing that their normal tactic of wearing down opposition with stupid arguments, ad hominem attacks and other fallacies doesn’t work they manufacture reasons i.e. a Goodwin violation, to kill the embarrassing threads.

But that wasn’t as lame as re-editing posts. It’s especially pathetic given their claim to “value constructive debate”.

I think what they value is saving face in front of their feminist friends.

R. Mildred Mar 22nd, 2007 at 10:33 am

simply stating that the Patriarchy doesn’t exist to feminists

â€¦would be like telling marxists that poor people donâ€™t exist, like telling a hardcore christian that not only wasnâ€™t jesus crucified, but that he currently owns a small shack in the carribbean where he fishes and spends his days in tax exile down on the nudist beach, playing volley ball and paying poor people to let him shit in their mouthes while he masturbates furiously onto their feet.

If you canâ€™t make an accurate analogy, comparison or metaphor, please do not try.

My analogy was correct as it pertains to the core assumption of all these beliefs: Christianity needs God, Marxists need to believe that communism works, Feminists need the Patriarchy. Thus to call into question the core assumption of each of these groups is to invite their ire.

If you want to have an example of a classic false analogy just see Marc’s comparison of Holocaust denial to Patriarchy denial.

“Telling feminists there is no patriarchy is like telling the NAACP there is no Klan.”

As I already explained my analogy was apt. Your analogy isn’t. The presence of sexist or racist people in a society does not mean that society is structurally racist (as in Jim Crow or apartheid) or a patriarchy. It just means their are always assholes lying around somewhere. Also there is not anti-feminist equivalent of the KKK.

Amanda:

I went to your linked site. It’s just a few quotes of a few feminists. There is no evidence. It’s akin to sending some one to a site with a few Christians giving personal testimonies about the power of Christ. Would you be convinced that this proved Christianity? Then why do you expect me to be swayed?

Also I find it amusing that they argue that some men are apart from the Patriarchy and that only a few men are true patriarchs. You just effectively refuted marc’s opening “point”.

Wow. I just read Marc’s really, really long post where he bemoans the plight of poor bloggers who must deal with those of “dark and twisted hearts” or some such nonsense.

Apparently he has been blocking us because one of us (me) told him flatly that the anchor of his world isn’t true.

He then goes into this elaborate argument about how people with different world views can’t debate because they disagree about basic assumptions and that he has a blog and therefore he can do what he wants in the interest of securing “œconstructive discussion”.

Being open-minded I thought about that a bit.

You don’t have to agree with people about basic underlying principles and assumptions to have decent discussions.

For example: I believe in a constitutional representative democracy. My political beliefs rest on the assumption that, in the end, people having the power through elections is the best form of government.

This doesn’t mean I can’t debate anarchists, communists, fascists, constitutional-monarchists, etc when it comes to political issues. I can still discuss with them the merits of a particular law, or candidate or get into discussions regarding principles of justice or human nature. In fact, debating people without your set of shared assumptions is more conducive to good debate because you have to really examine why you believe what you believe. It’s called intellectual curiosity. Maybe the anarchist has a point? Maybe communists aren’t as stupid as you thought? You don’t ask these questions if you retreat into a secure ideological bubble.

Also I find it interesting that Marc is so upset about my not agreeing with him about the patriarchy as it really had nothing to do with our last discussion. Every time I formulated my arguments I went along with the assumption that there was a patriarchy – to challenge his notion that those who sacrifice power shouldn’t be congratulated for it.

In fact, I only mentioned the non-existence of the Patriarchy when he asked me about whether or not I thought there was male privilege. Having no desire to open the Pandora’s Box of Patriarchy I kept it short and simple. “No. There is no patriarchy.”

In the end, Marc showed that apparently being open-minded means you only talk to people you agree with. He might try something new when you argue with someone keep it fair. Avoid fallacies and make sure you find evidence and have sound reasoning for your positions. Either you will strengthen your position or you will find that your current beliefs are not as self-evident as you thought.

At the very least if you are going to censor your blog don’t pretend to be open-minded.

Wow this turned out longer than I thought it would.

# Chris Bradley Mar 22nd, 2007 at 11:55 pm

Fairly regularly I get into similar discussions. Some well meaning man will go, “But I don’t support oppression and I’m man and I am offended at the term patriarchy.”

At which time I try to tell them that the patriarchy is a system that exists regardless of gender, and the term is based on a social construct of male privilege and violence that has existed for, oh, since history began, really. That it doesn’t necessarily reflect on an individual (tho’, clearly, being a man in a patriarchical system is advantageous to those men), and it’s patriarchy even if a woman (say, Ann Coulter or Margaret Thatcher) is doing it.

I go on to say that it is indisputable that men have privilege in global society, and to say otherwise means a person is obviously deeply stupid, ignorant or insane (tho’ I usually try to say it a trifle nicer).

Then I try to say that if you’re a man against the patriarchy, it’s like being a freedom fighter. You still live under the system of oppression you fight against, but it exists even as you struggle against it. It wasn’t only kings that supported monarchy, and it wasn’t only peasants that opposed it (tho’, yes, generally that was the case). So, if you’re an aristocrat that fights against monarchy, you can’t deny it’s monarchy, just as you can’t deny you’ve lived a life of privilege as an aristocrat.

Linking to our post and discussing it in your own space is fine. Lifting my entire post and the comments there is theft.

C’mon loser. If you honestly believe that you have intellectual property rights to comments we posted on a blog then surely you would believe that completely changing our words and posting it under our handle’s is fraudulent.